Gabriel makes a face.
“I’m kidding. If you want to get into Antony’s good books, find Brentwood and put a knife through his head.”
“Your family is crazy, Claws.” Gabriel’s hand slides down my side to rest casually and possessively on my hip. “I approve.”
“Guys, we found him,” Noah calls from the other end of the house. He sounds… weird, but that might just be his voice echoing through the mansion.
Gabriel takes off in the direction of Noah’s voice. I yank his arm to stop him from running. “Stay behind me, remember?” I scan every surface for traps and tripwires as we make our way back along the hallway and down another.
“Where are you?” I call out as we face two branching hallways and rows of identical doors. This place is a maze.
“Master bedroom – the door at the end on the left,” Antony calls out. “Watch the wire on the bathroom door.”
Gabriel and I make our way across the gilded bedroom to where Antony and Noah are inside a palatial ensuite. I have to bend down in the doorway to see the invisible wire catching the light. I lift my foot over it and immediately slide in a puddle of blood.
“Fuck.”
Noah slams his body into mine, catching me before I go down on top of the wire. His warm hands wrap around my waist, and I don’t want to leave.
“That was close.” I breathe into his neck, inhaling his salt and jasmine scent as I let my heart rate return to normal.
“Mmmm. Watch your step.” Noah sets me on my feet again and extends a hand to help Gabriel. “This place is a biohazard.”
Massacreis the word I’d use.
My pulse races as I take in the scene. Brentwood lies in a tub of crimson bathwater I’m assuming isn’t the result of a Lush bath bomb. Blood splatters the walls and ceiling – great long slashes of the stuff, the marks of a killer who relished his task. Brentwood’s stomach is torn open, a mess of gore. But his face is what turns my stomach – his eyes bug out in an expression of pure terror. His tongue lolls to the side of his mouth, sticking out through swollen lips. His cheeks are puffed out, and as I step closer, I see why.
Someone has stuffed pills into his mouth and up his nose – so many they spill out on his tongue. A few bob about on the surface of the water. Several of the capsules have broken open or dissolved, leaving their contents speckling his clothing.
Someone shut Brentwood up good.
13
Claudia
“What the fuck?” Brentwood is supposed to be Dio’s most infamous assassin. How does someone manage to catch him off-guard and dothis?
“My thoughts exactly.” Antony points to the spatter on the wall behind his head. “See how this blood has dried? I think this happened a few hours ago, maybe even last night. The floor’s still wet because of the amount of water splashed everywhere.”
“There’s no way he just… slipped and accidentally stabbed himself?” Gabe shakes his head at Noah’s proffered hand. He sits on the end of Brentwood’s bed, his skin pale and sickly.
“Sure, Pretty Boy. People slip in the bathtub and eviscerate themselves while choking on a pile of pills all the time.” Antony uses the edge of his shirt to pick up an empty bottle bobbing in the water. “Apparently, our friend Brentwood here has been given a crazy overdose of ergogenic aids.”
“What’s that?”
Antony turns the label around to face me. “Performance enhancers for athletes. And will you look at that… these are a Malloy Supplements special – although according to this warning label, they’re not yet approved for the market.”
Noah stiffens. Antony glares at him as he shoves the pills into his pocket. “You have something to say, Dark Horse?”
I snort. I can’t help it. Antony’s nicknames for the guys are so on-the-nose.
“It’s just… my brother was killed because he took unapproved supplements made-to-order by Mackenzie’s father. I thought my family had it out for the Malloys because Dad blames them for my brother’s death and my mother’s suicide. But Claudia and I found some papers in Howard’s office that show my father was working with Malloy. Maybe he hired Brentwood because he knew Mackenzie was back in her house—” he says this with a sly look in my direction “—and he wants to make sure those papers never see the light of day.”
“And according to you, Brentwood refused to go after Mackenzie because of whatever he saw that night,” Antony says. “Now he’s dead from a drug overdose.”
That’s too big a coincidence. I turn to Noah. “You think your father didthis?”
“I don’t think he personally shoved these pills down Brentwood’s throat.” Noah glances up at the blood fanning across the ceiling. He swallows hard. “But yes, I believe this is connected.”
